Federated Blogging Platforms

dameoutlaw , 22 days ago

So weird that no one mentioned https://micro.blog/
Which only after Mastodon was the second platform to adopt ActivityPub.

sabreW4K3 OP , 22 days ago

I can't find anything regarding self-hosting this

Old_Geezer , 16 days ago

Is it closed source? What are the community rules? Beside the obvious content being not allowed, does it censor political speech? Define what is considered hate speech, etc?

palordrolap , 24 days ago

There's also a Fediverse plugin for WordPress if you already have a host. Caveat: I have only seen it on Fediverse directories. No idea whether it's any good.

sabreW4K3 OP , 24 days ago

I hear all this talk about WordPress, but at the same time, they're selling users' content to AI, so I don't want to continue to use them.

LunarLoony , 22 days ago

Is there a source for this? I have a WordPress blog but been tempted to switch to a different platform due to bloat.

sabreW4K3 OP , 22 days ago

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/opt-out-of-ai-training/

LunarLoony , 22 days ago

Thanks. Looks like it's only affecting Wordpress.com for now. We'll see if it trickles down to .org too

ajsadauskas , 24 days ago

@sabreW4K3 Plume doesn't appear to be active, unfortunately 🥺

There's a notice on the official Join Plume website saying the former developers don't have the time to maintain it anymore. Most of the former public instances now throw up errors of various kinds.

WriteFreely ( @writefreely ) is alive and well. I was seriously toying with the idea of setting up a blog through its main instance, which is called Write.as Professional. The sticking point for me was that the official on-platform monetisation tool (Coil) appears to be dead, and doesn't support members-only posts (like Ghost).

Ghost, when federation goes live, looks like it will be the best option for my blog.

WordPress plus @pfefferle 's plugins is another great option, depending on what you want to use it for. (There's no shortage of WP plugins!)

As for Lemmy, I could see a blogging-focussed front end being created for it, in the same way FediBB put a traditional message board front end on it, but one doesn't appear to exist at present.

sabreW4K3 OP , 24 days ago

It's a real shame about Plume. I actually saw that notice on the Plume website, but thought as long as I can get it up and running, it can't be so bad.

I've spent the best part of this week trying to get WriteFreely up and running locally as I just want to host a couple blogs without having to agree to let LLMs harvest my musings, but alas, WriteFreely doesn't work with Docker and the community is MIA.

Ghost was something I was excited about but it only allows one blog per instance, so it's not even worth getting excited about the upcoming federation implementation.

WordPress as a company are happy to get into bed with LLMs, so I'm holding them at arms length.

As for Lemmy, it's far too cumbersome and not adept at blogging. But it's an amazing link aggregator.

jaagruk , 24 days ago

Writefreely?

sabreW4K3 OP , 24 days ago

What is it or why am I looking for an alternative?

jaagruk , 24 days ago

Did not readed full post, sorry.

sabreW4K3 OP , 24 days ago

No worries. I appreciate the thought. Thanks for trying to help.

maegul , 24 days ago

I keep wondering if lemmy itself could do a decent job of this, and that being native to a communities style platform is a good thing for a blogging platform on the fediverse.

sabreW4K3 OP , 24 days ago

Lemmy absolutely could, but it shouldn't. It's a far better link aggregator than it will ever be a blog platform,

maegul , 24 days ago

but it shouldn’t

I'm curious about why you think this relatively strongly (if you don't mind my asking)?

sabreW4K3 OP , 24 days ago

I'm a big fan of tools made for purpose. Lemmy has some fantastic features and continues to improve, but it was never designed as a blogging platform. Even when I duplicate self text posts, it doesn't merge. In the timeline. I like Lemmy and want to see it succeed. Though that's not easy with the ML administration team going rogue or the overt centralization fostered on world, but neither of those are software issues.

helenslunch , 20 days ago

Even when I duplicate self text posts, it doesn't merge. In the timeline.

That's kinda the beauty of open source though. The clients can manage this function. And they do.

Old_Geezer , 16 days ago

What do you mean by the "ml team going rogue"?

sabreW4K3 OP , 16 days ago

Deleted posts and member bans inconsistent with the rules and without explanation.

poVoq , 24 days ago

Wordpress obviously.

Friendica, Hubzilla and Streams also work quite well for long-form blogs.

sabreW4K3 OP , 24 days ago

Thanks, this made me actually take the time to look into hubzilla finally and its my first time hearing about Streams.

chris , 24 days ago

@sabreW4K3

you can have all the features of Hubzilla and make it look like Writefreely

https://im.allmendenetz.de/channel/blogbasic-one

sabreW4K3 OP , 24 days ago

Okay, I guess my next big question is, what is hubzilla at its core? Is it a NextCloud alternative?

poVoq , 24 days ago

I think originally it tried to be a Facebook alternative, but over time it developed into a personal cloud space of sorts. I would agree with the comparison to Nextcloud as of 5 years ago, but these days they pivoted into the enterprise space and isn't that nice for home users any longer.

sabreW4K3 OP , 24 days ago

Does Hubzilla have CardDAV and CalDAV support? I'm using NextCloud for calendar and contacts primarily, would be interesting to try Hubzilla as a replacement if it's feasible.

poVoq , 24 days ago

Yes and WebDAV support.

sabreW4K3 OP , 24 days ago

Nice. Thank you.

sabreW4K3 OP , 24 days ago

Sorry to bother you again, I was starting to look into Hubzilla and my brain started hurting, because I can't understand how you federate contacts, calendar and file hosting. That said, I started looking into the contacts and calendar thing and this came up

Hubzilla and Nextcloud both offer features for managing contacts and calendars, but they cater to different needs:

• Hubzilla focuses on social networking and doesn't have built-in calendar or contact management features. However, some Hubzilla servers offer integrations with third-party calendar and contact apps.
• Nextcloud excels at personal cloud storage, including contacts and calendars. You can store your contact information and calendar events on your own server, giving you complete control and privacy over your data.

Is this correct?

poVoq , 24 days ago

Well, for various reasons I stopped hosting my own Hubzilla instance some years ago, but back then it absolutely had CalDAV and CardDAV. The problem was mainly that this wasn't well exposed in the Hubzilla web-interface, other than an event calendar. But with Thunderbird and DAVx5 etc. you could connect to it and manage it just fine. The WebDAV file storage part worked fine in the web-interface as well.

Edit: these parts are not federated though AFAIK (contrary to Nextcloud which does have some kind of file-sharing federation).

chris , 23 days ago

@poVoq

Sure - Hubzilla has file-sharing functionality... but the files stay on your could....

The magic and real power of Hubzilla however is that you can share permission and access rights across Fedi Servers...

so even the files stay on your server you can "federate" access all over the Fediverse ... you can´t do that with Nextcloud

With Nextcloud you can share with an Email account holder - with Hubzilla you can share with an Fedi account holder

@sabreW4K3

poVoq , 23 days ago

It's true that Hubzilla has access permissions for files on your WebDAV folder, and those access permissions sort of federate to other Zot protocol using sites (but not the wider Fediverse), but Nextcloud also has its own inter-Nextcloud federation where you can access files on other Nextcloud instances right inside your Nextcloud.

chris , 23 days ago

@poVoq

those access permissions sort of federate to other Zot protocol using sites (but not the wider Fediverse),

there were improvements done in the last years... so with the OCAP function ( /settings/privacy ) and guest tokens ( /tokens ) we can share permissions for files across the Fediverse ... and even to people who do not have a Fedi Account jet

come back on board and have a closer look

poVoq , 23 days ago

Ah, good to know, thanks for the correction 👍

I don't really have a need for most of the features Hubzilla offers, so I think I'll stick to my Akkoma instance. But I encourage people to check out Hubzilla, as it is a neat project overall.

chris , 23 days ago

@poVoq Akkoma? i thought you found your home on Lemmy?

I saw your avatar years ago a lot in Hubzilla posts...

Akkoma and Hubzilla are different because of the permission system and all this other CMS functions.

poVoq , 23 days ago

I use both Lemmy and Akkoma, but yes I used to be quite active on Hubzilla when I had an instance of it.

chris , 23 days ago

@sabreW4K3

Hubzilla and Nextcloud both offer features for managing contacts and calendars, but they cater to different needs:

Hubzilla focuses on social networking and doesn’t have built-in calendar or contact management features. However, some Hubzilla servers offer integrations with third-party calendar and contact apps.
Nextcloud excels at personal cloud storage, including contacts and calendars. You can store your contact information and calendar events on your own server, giving you complete control and privacy over your data.

NO

Hubzilla has a build calendar and has a contact management, also a personal cloud storage and gives you complete control and privacy over your data.

chris , 23 days ago

@sabreW4K3
Maybe we can put is that way:
Hubzilal is focused on social networking and has also a could storage

Nextcloud is focus on providing a cloud storage and has also social networking features...

you get it ? the focus ist different :-)

sabreW4K3 OP , 23 days ago

I ended up watching a few videos and now I understand. Danke!